


The White Wolf

by Tor_Raptor



Series: The Gravesen Chronicles [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Cancer, Family, Football | Soccer, Friendship, Gen, Kid Avengers, Teen Avengers, cystic fibrosis, major character illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27433714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tor_Raptor/pseuds/Tor_Raptor
Summary: Before Gravesen, Bucky grew up adjacent to his best friend's chronic illness. He understood more about that world than most kids his age, but he never imagined he'd become a part of it.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Series: The Gravesen Chronicles [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925263
Comments: 150
Kudos: 62





	1. The Howling Commandos

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a relevant anecdote before we get started:
> 
> In my first draft of Gravesen, Bucky and Steve didn't meet each other until they got to the hospital. I wanted to start with a clean slate and decided that maybe they developed their close friendship while there, instead of having years of backstory going into it. Then I decided it would be a much more riveting story if they'd known each other for years, just like in the MCU, so I changed it. Surprisingly, it was a pretty easy alteration to make and I was much happier with the new draft and all of the possibilities it opened up for their respective prequels. I fell head over heels in love with the dynamic between Bucky and a Steve with CF, and I desperately wanted to explore the extra turmoil that came with Bucky's cancer diagnosis with him having grown up alongside a friend with a chronic illness. This was the result.

Jim tossed a grape into the air and expertly caught it in his mouth. "So, are you pumped for game day, or what?"

"One of these days you're going to choke. I know you all are used to the sound of coughing from hanging around me all the time, but I for one don't want to see that," Steve chided.

"Oh would you relax," Jim retorted.

"No. I refuse," Steve quipped, only to get pelted by a grape.

"That's just wasteful," Gabe said.

"Getting Steve Rogers to chill the fuck out is never a waste," Timmy pointed out.

"I second that," Bucky chuckled. "And to answer your question: yes, I am absolutely psyched for game day." That's what he said out loud. But on the inside, Bucky's nerves were weaving themselves into tangles. When he not only made the team but became starting goalie as a freshman, a feat unheard of in the history of the school, he'd been elated. Only now that their first game of the season loomed just hours away did he realize how much pressure to perform he was under. If he messed up he'd not only let his entire team down but he'd also prove why kids his age shouldn't be allowed to start.

"We are going to _demolish_ them," Gabe said, punching his open hand with a fist to emphasize his point.

"I don't know about _demolishing_ ," Bucky admitted. "Maybe edging out."

"We'll see," Timmy said. "And you'll be able to find us in the stands pretty easily with all the noise we'll be making."

"I look forward to it."

~0~

Bucky easily located his friends in the stands when he walked out onto the field. Not because of their raucous cheering but because they'd somehow managed to score front row seats. The front row was usually reserved for the parents and friends of seniors and the occasional alumnus. He suspected Steve had something to do with it. Now that he used oxygen full-time he got what he wanted just by asking more often than not. Bucky tried not to feel jealous of the special attention his friend usually received, and for the most part he succeeded because he knew about the many, many downsides to being chronically ill. Still, it was impossible to keep the feeling at bay one hundred percent of the time.

He stood in the huddle with his teammates, all of them with their blue jerseys and him with his white. It was somewhat alienating to wear a different color as the goalie, but at the same time it made him recognize how special his job was. That's right, he could actually use his hands without getting penalized for it.

Gabe elbowed him in the side. He was the only member of his and Steve's friend group to also make the soccer team, though he wasn't starting. It was unlikely he'd see any game play today unless one of the upperclassmen got injured. "Where's the half bun?" he asked. Only now that he mentioned it did Bucky remember the deal. When they tried out, he and Gabe vowed that if they didn't make the team they'd shave their heads to broadcast their failure to the entire school. It was excellent incentive to play well at try-outs. Bucky jokingly proposed a counter-deal that if by some miracle he ended up starting he'd wear his hair half-up in a bun for the first game of the season. Evidently Gabe hadn't recognized it as a joke.

"Fine," Bucky grumbled. He'd been planning just to let his shoulder-length brown hair sit loose during the game since it didn't exactly get in his way, but he wasn't one to renege on a deal.

"You look gorgeous, Buck," Gabe jeered.

"Shut up."

After a quick pep talk from Coach Phillips, they broke the huddle and prepared for the beginning of the game. Bucky's anticipation of playing the sport that he loved washed away his nerves almost entirely. He took up his position in the goal and waved to Steve. Though he was much too far away to hear and he didn't know how to read lips, he could just _tell_ that Steve said, "Love the hairdo." It was the look on his face that gave it away. Just before the game began, the stands erupted with howls.

It was a strange way to show school spirit, yes. Visiting teams always gave them weird looks. But it was traditional. They were the Hudson Creek High School Howling Commandos, so it was only fitting. Bucky didn't know what asshole had decided that was a good mascot, but it was the one they were stuck with. He also didn't know where the school got its name since there was no such place as Hudson Creek anywhere nearby, but nobody knew. It just was.

The howling died down just as the ball was released onto the field. Bucky slipped into the zone, letting everything escape his attention but the flash of black and white flitting around the field. His position was very hurry-up-and-wait, especially compared to the constant running of the midfielders, but patience was just as much a skill as speed and agility. He couldn't let himself relax because the ball could change directions any minute. If he let his attention lapse for even half a second, that could be the half second someone made a shot that got past him.

The defenders on his team ensured he didn't have to make any saves for the first eight minutes of the game. He had his eye on a player called Zemo on the opposing team. He'd gotten closer to shooting than anyone else. Sure enough, it was him that finally kicked the ball into Bucky's territory. It wasn't a particularly difficult save; Bucky took one controlled step to the left and reached out, his hand easily blocking the ball from entering the goal. A victorious smile erupted on his face in response to Zemo's glare. One of Bucky's teammates gained control of the ball and he relished in the crowd's cheering and howling at his success.

He made two saves of a similar caliber, one of which was from Zemo. Bucky's skills weren't really put to the test until the last three minutes of the game. They were up one to nothing against the Red Skulls, and Bucky would not allow this to become a tie game. Zemo approached his goal once again and Bucky dropped to a slight crouch in the center, ready to spring either direction to protect his net. The ball flew in slow motion. It soared toward the top left corner and Bucky immediately sprang towards it, swatting the ball out of midair and sending it off to the side of the field. He'd put so much force behind the jump, intent only on gaining enough altitude to reach the ball, that he hadn't noticed how close to the post he was. His momentum carried him far enough that his left shoulder smacked into the upright white bar. The pain was blinding, but so was the uproar in the crowd. The bleachers shuddered with stomping feet and the air sang with celebratory howls.

The Commandos scored another goal with twenty seconds left in the game and they knew they'd won. His first game of the season was officially under his belt and Bucky considered it a complete success. Coach Philips had nothing but praise to share with them after they shook hands with the opposing team. Bucky noticed the player called Zemo squeezed his hand extra tight. After a brief celebration with the team and a promise of more victory revels later, he and Gabe set off in search of their friends. Gabe had actually gotten in a few minutes of playing time and he was over the moon about it. Timmy spotted them first and waved them over.

"Dude, that last save was awesome!" Jim commended Bucky with a strong pat on the shoulder—the one which hadn't quite stopped dully throbbing. He forcibly turned a wince into a smile and thanked him.

Timmy continued, "You looked like a rocket taking off."

"Great job, Buck," Steve said with a smile. Bucky took his praise to heart the most. He reminded himself to ask his best friend later how he'd scored front row seats.

"How about Gabe's footwork?" Bucky asked, offering his friend some of the glorious attention.

"Spectacular," Jim said.

"Truly remarkable," Timmy added.

"The only thing truly remarkable is the fact that our parents haven't swarmed us yet," Gabe remarked.

"Here they come." Bucky pointed to a squadron of adults, the parents of everyone in the friend group who had turned into a friend group of their own because of all the time they inevitably spent together.

"Congratulations!" Bucky's mom got to him first. She plastered an embarrassingly long kiss to his temple. Jim stuck his tongue out so only Bucky could see. "And I love what you've done with your hair." This time, it was Gabe's turn to make a face.

"Excellent work, you guys," Timmy's father told them.

"Thanks Mr. Dugan," Bucky and Gabe replied.

"Did you guys enjoy the spectacle?" Gabe asked.

"I'm so glad Steve begged us not to come, because otherwise I doubt we would've, and we so enjoyed it," Mr. Rogers said with a chuckle.

"Steve? You begged them not to come?" Bucky turned to his friend with an accusatory glare. "To the grand opening of my high school soccer career?"

"You know how they get," Steve said sheepishly. His mother proved his point by hugging him for absolutely no reason.

"You must be so proud of your friend," she said.

"Yep. Super proud." The look in Steve's eyes screamed, "Help me," but Bucky only smirked. It was a well-known fact that Sarah Rogers was a hoverer. She'd confessed to it and everything. Apparently it was pretty common in parents of only children, especially ill only children. Her being a nurse certainly didn't help either.

"You feel warm," she stated, suddenly concerned instead of deliberately over-endearing.

"I'm fine, Mom," Steve insisted. She did this rather often; noticed something off about Steve only for it to turn out to be nothing. But sometimes it did turn out to be something. Bucky hoped this wasn't one of those times. They'd just started high school and Steve's last hospital stay had been barely two months ago. He couldn't go back now, not when he'd just been elected class president.

His mother believed him and they resumed their revels. That night Bucky's parents took him out to dinner, just the three of them, to celebrate. "You proved that freshies can hold their own on the field," his father told him. That was all Bucky had set out to do. Prove his worth. And he'd actually done it. With the entire rest of the season before him, Bucky looked forward to continuing to prove it.

~0~

He earned the nickname after their first playoff game. The entire season up to now, Bucky hadn't let in a single goal. For the first time in years, the Howling Commandos were the team to beat. Coach Phillips practically glowed whenever he so much as laid eyes on Bucky during practice. Apparently he'd taken some heat for allowing a freshman to start in place of an upperclassman, but nobody doubted his decision now. Even the starting goalie from last season, now relegated to backup, didn't seem the least bit embittered or jealous. In fact, he commended Bucky on his excellent work multiple times during practices.

The offenders on the opposing team were ruthless, and Bucky's muscles ached from multiple leaping saves. There'd been a few close calls, but his perfect record remained intact. His left shoulder throbbed in time with his heartbeat, likely aggravated from landing on it a few times. The ball came soaring towards him once again, and he dove right. Bouncing off his outstretched hand, the ball soared back out into the sea of players. Bucky hoped it would find a teammate, but he had no such luck. Still on the ground from the first save, Bucky scrambled to his hands and knees. The ball flew straight toward another offender, who sent it flying right back into the now empty half of the net. Bucky gathered his feet beneath him and pounced.

He didn't even know if he succeeded until he heard the crowd. The deep ache in his shoulder was too distracting. Until now, he could ignore it, but it had grown strong enough that his mind alone couldn't keep it at bay. Though he hated to admit it, taking himself out of the game might be necessary at this point. But then he heard the chanting.

"White Wolf! White Wolf!" punctuated by howls of delight and joyous stomping of feet in the stands. The surge of pride and adrenaline was enough to help him forget the agony. The Howling Commandos soared to a one-nothing victory. Bucky stumbled off the field in an elated daze, and Coach Philips was there to shout excitedly about his double-diving save. He was rambling about Bucky's future in the sport, the FIFA World Cup, and even Funko Pop figures. He sounded so excited that Bucky didn't have the heart to tell him, instead let the rambling continue and decided just to tell his parents and ask their advice later tonight. The excitement of advancing in the playoffs didn't diffuse Bucky's nagging worry that he might be injured. What if it was bad enough that he had to miss the next game? He'd literally _just_ earned a cool nickname; everyone might forget about it if he got benched.

Later that day, Bucky mustered up the courage to broach the subject to his mom. "I think I hurt my shoulder."

"What's that?" she asked. Either she didn't hear him the first time or didn't believe what she heard.

"I think I hurt my shoulder," he repeated a little less quietly. Saying it again only worsened his fears.

"Do you know how?"

"Not really. I mean, I've landed on it a bunch this season, but not that much more than usual."

"How long has it been hurting?"

"A few weeks maybe."

"And you neglected to bring this to anyone's attention until now?" she scolded.

"It wasn't that bad before. It was off and on."

"It was bad enough for you to notice. Didn't they have a whole seminar about injury awareness before they let you play a school sport?"

"They did," Bucky sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I thought it might go away, but now it's obvious that it won't."

"Does it hurt right now?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Okay. Why don't you take some Advil and we'll take you to urgent care tomorrow."

"Okay."

The Advil didn't even touch the pain, and he lay awake all night from a combination of nervousness and agony. He couldn't lie on his left side without making it worse, and even being on his back put pressure on the sore spot. The next morning couldn't come soon enough.

At urgent care, they asked him a bunch of inane questions about his history and whatnot. He was only half paying attention. They moved the joint through its entire range of motion and asked if any position hurt worse than another. None of them did. At this point it was just an all-consuming ache deep in his shoulder. They palpated it from different angles, and one spot definitely caused a spike. After everything, the best answer they could give him was that landing on it repeatedly had caused swelling. So they sent him home with a sling and told him to ice it and keep taking over the counter pain meds.

He gritted his teeth for three days and tried to believe they would start working, but it became evident that they accomplished nothing. Explaining to Coach Philips that he was injured and couldn't practice might have been the hardest thing he ever had to do. They were in the _playoffs_ now; they couldn't afford to lose their goalie. Since there was no official diagnosis, neither of them gave up hope that he'd be okay to play in the next match.

When those three days of rest and ice did absolutely nothing to ease the pain or the swelling, Bucky's mom got him in for an MRI, and that hope was completely obliterated. The scan revealed a mass.


	2. Forward and Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gravesen Chronicles news recap: the Nick prequel, now officially entitled "An Eye for an Eye" is complete at 4 chapters. The sequel has reached 75k words with no end in sight. Seriously, all that content is almost exclusively Tony, Steve, and Bucky. It's only going to get bigger once I start working with other characters. Every time I finish a chapter my excitement only grows, so I'm trying to feed your hype too. In other news, I get to host a workshop on writing fanfiction for my creative writing club tonight and I'm super excited. Now please enjoy this chapter :)

The next thing Bucky knew he was in the hospital wearing one of those flimsy white-and-blue gowns that he'd seen Steve don on so many occasions and awaiting a procedure that would remove a chunk of whatever this mass was and determine its identity. He hadn't experienced this degree of blood-freezing terror since he last witnessed one of Steve's asthma attacks.

When he got here he'd finally cracked and squeaked out an "Eight" when asked how bad the pain was on a scale of one to ten. He knew they had him on good drugs, but they _weren't helping_. What helped even less was the text from Steve:

"Where are you?"

Bucky hadn't told him what happened yet. He'd been too busy freaking out about a mass of _something_ in his shoulder that he hadn't paused to tell anyone anything. The only people who knew what was going on were his parents. But Steve deserved to know, didn't he? He always told Bucky when something was going on with him. Bucky started typing out the truth, but deleted it before he could finish. The last thing he wanted to do was make Steve worry prematurely. Bucky's injury had already set him on edge, and he didn't want to make it worse. Both of them were unused to this dynamic in their friendship. Steve got sick and Bucky worried about him. That was how it was supposed to work, not the other way around.

He told Steve this instead: "At an appointment for my shoulder."

"Okay. Good luck. Let me know when you get any news."

"Ok."

Bucky could feel the nerves radiating off of his friend through the phone almost as palpably as he could feel them on his mother beside him. "Is the pain any better?" she asked him. He lied and said yes even though he wanted nothing more than to rip his entire shoulder out just to make it stop. Bucky found himself actually looking forward to the procedure because anesthesia-induced sleep would award him a break from the agony.

This was his first time being put to sleep and he didn't know what to expect. It actually turned out to be a lot less eventful than he thought. The drugs went in, and then he was out. He came to back in the room, his mother's face the first thing he managed to make his eyes focus on. The memory of the pain had faded, which made it all the more difficult to stifle a whine when it returned in full force. He wrenched in a deep breath and clenched his jaw, refusing to give in to it.

"What's the matter?" his mother's voice sounded indistinct through the layers of mental blocks he was attempting to put up to shut out the pain.

"Hurts," he grunted through gritted teeth. It came out sounding more like a childish whimper than a manly grumble, and Bucky just _crumpled_. He couldn't stop the tortured wail that tore itself from his throat like a wild animal escaping abusive captivity.

A hectic flurry of activity ensued, many voices calling out orders and overlapping each other to form one crazed chorus. Once the tears started, they refused to stop. He tried to mentally retreat, to distance his mind from the relentless stabbing and throbbing that resonated all the way into his chest and back, but a new voice or a new jolt drew him right back out.

"Just make it stop! Please make it stop!" he pleaded.

"They're trying, sweetheart, they're trying," his mother coaxed. In Bucky's opinion, they weren't trying nearly hard enough. After an eternity, the pain finally lessened just enough for him to classify it as an improvement. Sometime after that he passed out.

~0~

Bucky eventually awoke, though he often wished he hadn't. The conclusion of that sleep marked the beginning of the spiral. He knew it couldn't be good when the doctor brought company. And he knew it was really bad when that company introduced herself as Dr. Potts, Gravesen's head oncologist. This time, it was Bucky's mom's turn to cry while his father comforted her. Bucky could do nothing but stare, dumbfounded, at the people explaining that the mass of _something_ in his shoulder was actually an aggressively malignant something. Something called Ewing's sarcoma. A tidal wave of information smashed into them, and Bucky only managed to hold onto a few words before they vanished from his brain like sand through a sieve. Further testing. Chemotherapy. Amputation.

When they left, Bucky turned immediately to the only person he could. He asked his parents for some privacy and then, as soon as the door closed behind them, he called Steve. His tear ducts kicked into gear before his friend could even pick up, and by the time Steve's distinct, ever-congested-sounding voice said hello, Bucky was already sniffling.

"Buck, are you—are you crying?" Steve asked. "Is everything okay?"

"No." Bucky shuddered.

"What's wrong?"

"My—my shoulder."

"Did they figure out what's wrong with it? Come on, Bucky, you've gotta talk to me."

"Th—They found a tumor. It's cancer." Saying the words out loud brought a fresh round of silent tears, and the sound of Steve's frightened gasp only made them fall faster.

"Oh my God. I'm so sorry, Bucky. Are you at Gravesen?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be there in less than an hour."

He wanted to tell Steve that he didn't have to come, that he could handle this alone the way Steve shouldered so much of his own health-related burden, but that desire was dwarfed into nonexistence by the need to have his best friend by his side during the hardest moment of his life to date. If anyone could get Bucky through this with some semblance of his sanity intact, it was Steve.

~0~

The first time Bucky met Steve he didn't even know he was sick. Bucky was only four years old, and the boy didn't look sick. Sure, he was on the skinny side, but Bucky didn't know that meant anything; he barely even noticed it. He was just glad the new neighbors had a kid his age so he could play with him. The last new people to move in nearby didn't have any kids, so when Bucky's parents invited them over to welcome them to the neighborhood he was terribly bored.

Steve wasn't boring. He liked to play with all the same toys that Bucky did, so much so that they didn't want to stop and come to dinner when Bucky's mom called them in. "Boys, come on!" she prompted again, and they reluctantly left their latest block towers un-destroyed by Bucky's biggest trucks. Steve sat down at the table next to his mother and Bucky filled in the empty chair next to him.

As Bucky's parents served dinner, Steve's mom reached into her purse and pulled out a clear box with lots of little compartments. She popped one open, poured out some weird capsule-looking things, and set them on the napkin beside Steve's plate.

"Do I have to?" Steve whined quietly.

"Yes," she said.

"Can't we do the applesauce thing?"

"No. I didn't bring any. You practiced, remember? You can swallow them."

"I don't wanna."

"I know, buddy, and I'm sorry, but you have to. We talked about this." Steve's mom glanced around the table and noticed both Bucky's parents watching her intently. They looked almost as confused as Bucky felt. Steve reluctantly grabbed the capsules and swallowed them with a gulp of water. "See, now wasn't that easy?"

"No," Steve grumbled. His mom ignored him.

"What were those?" Bucky asked in awe. He'd seen his parents swallow things like that sometimes, but only when they had a headache.

"They're my N-zimes," Steve explained. "I have to take them whenever I eat. Mommy used to cut them open and pour the little beads on some applesauce, but now she's making me practice swallowing them like a big kid."

"Do they taste good?"

"They used to taste like applesauce," Steve remarked wistfully. "Now they're just boring." He picked up his fork and reluctantly started eating, so Bucky did the same.

"So, what brings you to Brooklyn?" Bucky's father asked Steve's parents jovially with a slight raise of his glass.

"Besides the company?" Mr. Rogers shot back. The grown-ups all laughed, but Bucky didn't understand why. Neither did Steve.

"I appreciate it, but you couldn't have possibly known about my wife's hospitality beforehand," Mr. Barnes said.

"Oh, stop it," Mrs. Barnes insisted.

"The short version is that Steve brought us here," Mrs. Rogers explained.

"I'd like to hear the long version if you're willing," Mr. Barnes said.

"Of course. We moved here to be closer to Gravesen," Steve's mom explained. Bucky watched Steve visibly cower at the mention of that name.

"The hospital?" Bucky's dad sounded scared now. He turned to Steve and looked at him as if searching for something. Bucky looked too, but he didn't see anything that should make his dad afraid.

"Yes. We were referred to a pulmonology specialist based there, a Dr. Abraham Erskine. Steve has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that affects his lungs and digestion." The boy in question squirmed uncomfortably. Bucky listened to Mrs. Rogers intently, but he didn't understand a lot of the words she used.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that," Bucky's mom said. "Is it serious?"

"As of now, there's no cure. We can only manage it and try to keep his lungs as healthy as possible for as long as possible."

"Mommy, do we have to talk about it?" Steve asked.

"They asked nicely, and it's important to spread awareness wherever we can, Steve," she told him. Steve didn't seem to like that answer, but he stopped arguing. Bucky was afraid now. His new friend had a disease with no cure. Bucky's grandma had had a disease with no cure, and she died. Was Steve going to die too? He didn't want that to happen.

"Is he gonna die?" Bucky asked, failing to keep the fear out of his voice. His parents both turned to him with shock and anger in their eyes, but he didn't understand what he'd said to warrant that. Asking questions was okay, wasn't it?

"No, sweetheart, not for a long time," Mr. Rogers assured him. "He might feel sick sometimes, maybe more often than you do, but nothing like that."

"Good."

"I'm sorry," Mrs. Barnes said to Steve's parents.

"No, it's alright," Mrs. Rogers told her. "It's a reasonable question. They're so young that it's hard to explain the concept of chronic illness. Answering their questions is the best we can do."

She was right. Bucky didn't understand the concept until he was at least ten or eleven. Before that, all he understood was that Steve was different from him and only grew more different with each passing year.

In kindergarten the most exciting thing in Bucky's lunchbox was the occasional piece of candy, but the other kids were always fascinated by Steve's nutritional supplement drinks that looked like milkshakes, even though he hardly ever drank them.

For Christmas when he was five, Bucky got a soccer ball. Steve got a feeding tube. Bucky didn't get to see him that Christmas.

When they met a nice, fluffy dog at the park one time, Bucky had a blast while Steve had an asthma attack and ended up in the hospital.

When Bucky took up playing soccer, Steve took up using the Afflovest.

The summer after second grade, Bucky's family spent two weeks at the beach while Steve's spent three weeks in the hospital while he fought off yet another lung infection.

Bucky sometimes got in trouble for fighting back if some kid made fun of Steve. But when Steve fought back—because he could, despite appearances—he escaped blame. Steve's parents never punished him, and Bucky couldn't help but be jealous when he was grounded for a week while Steve got off scot free.

When they were eleven, Bucky had braces put in his mouth and Steve had a port placed in his chest.

Bucky was bummed when he scored a seventy five on a math test; Steve was bummed when his baseline lung function dropped to seventy five percent.

Whenever Bucky caught a cold he had to stay away from Steve because whenever Steve caught a cold he had to double his daily treatments and sometimes ended up in the hospital.

At age thirteen Bucky got his braces off and Steve got a breathing tube taken out after another bad asthma attack had left him relying on one for three days.

Halfway through the eighth grade, Bucky started occasionally using cologne and Steve started constantly using supplemental oxygen.

Bucky's father strongly considered sending him to a private high school; Steve's parents strongly considered switching him to homeschooling. Fortunately, they both managed to change their parents' minds.

The only thing that didn't change over the years was their friendship.

They were inseparable from that first meeting. Though Steve was born the July before Bucky, his parents kept him back a year and they started school at the same time. Every year they eagerly awaited finding out what teachers they had and crossed their fingers they would be in the same class. The years they did share a teacher probably coincided with the years they learned the least because they spent more time than they ought to whispering to each other and playing games across the desk.

Bucky quickly adapted to the things Steve couldn't do, but for the most part that list was minimal. Sleepovers always took place at the Rogers' apartment because Steve couldn't skip a breathing treatment or a feeding and it was too much of a hassle to bring everything to the Barnes'. Bucky didn't mind one bit, and neither did any of the other friends to join their group over the years. Gabe played on the same soccer team as Bucky and the two instantly became buddies. Timmy and Jim were already close friends and they got to know Steve in third grade, one of the few years Bucky and Steve weren't in the same class. Throughout the rest of elementary school each friend was always in class with at least one other, except for a few weeks in fifth grade when Steve was hospitalized and left Jim alone.

The five of them fit together perfectly, but Steve and Bucky just fit tighter. There were some things that Steve trusted with only Bucky. If they did their homework together after school, Steve sent Timmy, Jim, and Gabe home before his afternoon Afflovest treatment. Only Bucky had the privilege to see him like that. The first few times it grossed him out, but he quickly grew accustomed to it.

For the most part he refused hospital visits from any of their other friends. Bucky didn't like going to Gravesen—the place scared the hell out of him, and there was this one nurse who always scrutinized his visitor's badge like it might be fake—but when Steve asked him to come he never said no. He missed his best friend and Steve must've missed him too. Somehow just being in there made him look sicker, and Bucky hated the reminder that Steve was anything but perfectly healthy. As he got older, it only scared him more. When they were little, Gravesen was the place Steve went to get better when he was sick. He always came back improved. But as time wore on and they both grew to understand just what cystic fibrosis was, Bucky knew that every infection that entailed a hospital visit meant another blow to Steve's lungs and that, eventually, a blow would be crippling.

However, that looming eventuality helped Steve and, by extension, Bucky, see the value in the time that they had. They laughed at even the un-funniest of jokes—or at each other's expense—avoided upsetting their parents (to the best of their ability), shared in each other's successes, and commiserated their failures. As far as Bucky was concerned, they had the "Best Friends" superlative in the bag before they even started high school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you enjoy this flashback to little Bucky and Steve? I know I did. There's much more where this came from when we get to Steve's prequel :)


	3. The Game Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did someone say bonus chapter?

Bucky finally reigned in his tears just in time for Steve to arrive and start them flowing all over again. He should've been embarrassed blubbering like a toddler, but he found no room within himself for anything but mind-numbing anguish, petrifying terror, and the morphine-dulled throb in his shoulder.

Steve immediately rushed to his side and wrapped his arms around him, letting Bucky bury his face in his shoulder and continue to cry. They sat there like that for a long time before Bucky's composure returned enough for him to trust himself holding a conversation. The tears still fell, but now silently and without the accompanying full-body sobs.

"I—I don't know what to do, Steve," he spluttered.

"That's okay, Buck. It's all going to be okay."

"No it's not!" Bucky hurled himself back into Steve's embrace.

Steve sighed, coughed, and spoke again, "You're right. It's not okay, and I can't make it okay. But I really wish I could."

"I'm so scared," he muttered barely above a whisper.

"I know. And you have every right to be. This is some of the scariest shit known to man. But the only thing that can combat scary things is courage, and you have more of that than anyone I know."

"Where'd you steal that line from?" Bucky asked as a smirk broke through the tears.

"Nowhere! That was just my motivational speaking skills at their finest."

"I don't believe you."

"Google it. You won't find that quote anywhere."

"You should trademark it," Bucky suggested. "It's a pretty damn good quote."

"I'm glad you liked it because that's all I got," Steve admitted. They released each other and Bucky finally got the chance to see the heartbreak in his best friend's eyes. He was trying so hard not to break down, probably saving it for later when Bucky wasn't there to watch. "You know, this room is right across the hall from the one they usually stick me in. We could be neighbors," Steve said with a chuckle and a quick glance around. Bucky shuddered at the prospect. He'd always been a transient visitor at Gravesen, here only to see Steve and then return to the real world. As much as he didn't want to leave his best friend alone during hospital stays, Bucky always breathed a sigh of relief when he left. This hospital was stifling, and now he faced his own indeterminate imprisonment here.

Steve must've noticed Bucky's negative reaction to his comment because his laughter cut off abruptly and heavy silence ensued. It was broken by a harsh coughing fit on Steve's part, then he spoke again, "Even if I'm not physically here every time you are, I'll be with you every step of the way. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Bucky sighed. He couldn't meet Steve's eyes because he feared he might start crying again, instead picking at a loose thread in the sheets.

"This is a totally different ball game than CF, but they play by a few of the same rules. I can give you the inside scoop on a lot of things, and I know people that can cover what I can't."

The idea of being shown the ropes of cancer life by one of Steve's hospital buddies repulsed him. Bucky had met a few people Steve knew through Gravesen, but he knew them only as the people his friend spent time with when Bucky wasn't around. They constituted a club Bucky had been perfectly happy to be excluded from, and now Steve wanted to initiate him. Bucky was barely listening at this point, caught up in his own thoughts, but Steve kept rambling. "I'll introduce you to Carol and Clint, and we can catch you up on which nurses not to piss off so you don't have to learn it the hard way. Oh, and we'll get to add your name to the gauntlet—I'll explain that later—and get you into the Gravesen group chat. Man, it's so weird to think about you being a part of those things. We've always shared everything with each other, how crazy is it that we're going to share this place too? You and I are going to have more in common than ever."

"I don't want to be anything like you!" Bucky spat. The horrible outburst came from nowhere, his anger at the situation gathering and redirecting itself right at Steve. He was attempting to twist this into a good thing, and it made Bucky feel sick. This wasn't a fucking bonding experience for the two of them—it was easily the _worst_ thing to ever happen to Bucky. Steve was _born_ sick; he couldn't possibly understand what it was like for Bucky to receive this news and know his entire future hinged on this moment.

Steve stared at him, dumbfounded and stuttered, "I—I'm sorry."

"Just…go," Bucky sighed. "Find my parents and send them back in." Steve hesitated, but he did as Bucky said without another word.

"Did Steve have to leave?" his mom asked as she and his dad reentered the room.

"Not exactly," Bucky muttered.

"What, did you kick him out?" his dad asked jokingly. Bucky threw him a look that told him he'd hit the nail on the head. "Wait, why?"

"I just…realized I'm not in a state to handle company."

"Do you want us to go?"

"No, I asked him to send you back in. I just don't want _his_ company right now."

"Why not? I thought Steve would be the best possible person to help you through this."

"I thought so too, and at first he was really comforting and supportive, but then he kept talking and it almost sounded like…like he was _excited_ for me to be here."

"Bucky, I'm sure that's not true," his mother assured. "He's just as devastated as we all are, I could see it when he told us to come in here."

"You didn't hear him. He was babbling on about all these things I get to be a part of now, and how we're more alike than ever now."

"I didn't realize he was so…forward about it. He shouldn't have said those things and I'm sorry he upset you. But you should try to think about it from his perspective. You two have been friends for ten years, and through all of that you've been there for him every time his health falters, and he's never had an opportunity to repay you for that. Is it unreasonable for him to try and make you feel better by finding a silver lining?

"No," Bucky admitted.

"He's your best friend, he would never be happy that you're sick. He was just trying to find something about this situation that doesn't completely suck."

"You're right." Bucky sighed. "He was just trying to help, and I snapped at him."

"I don't think Joseph's here yet to pick him up, want me to go find him and bring him back?" his father offered. Bucky nodded and within ten minutes, Steve was back in his room looking noticeably more timid than Bucky had ever seen him.

"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time, causing them both to laugh.

"I shouldn't have snapped at you," Bucky said. "I'm just under a lot of stress right now, in case you didn't know that already, and something was bound to break at some point. You happened to be an available target for the fallout."

"I should've realized I was not being helpful," Steve said. "I'm just not used to this…like at all. It's always been the other way around, you here and me there," he pointed to the bed, "And I genuinely have no idea what to do on this side of things."

"I'll help you," Bucky promised with a smile. "Lesson number one: let me complain without trying to fix it—because you can't. I certainly never know what to do when you whine about only feeling half of your lungs, whatever that means."

"What do you think I do when you complain about something soccer-related with terminology I've never heard of?"

"Fair," Bucky conceded. "I'd give you more lessons now, but I think I've reached the cap of my teaching capacity for today."

"That's alright. I'll learn as I go."

"Sounds like a plan."

~0~

Things got really busy after that. Per Steve's advice, Bucky accepted sedation when they offered it for any procedure. He woke up blearily after a bone marrow pull with a dull ache in his hips to accompany the one in his shoulder. Fortunately, they must've found the right drug cocktail because it hadn't come within miles of the level of pain he experienced before.

The primary tumor obviously sat in his shoulder, but they needed to check the rest of his body for hotspots of rapidly-multiplying cells that would indicate the cancer had metastasized. A lot hinged on this, he learned. Not from his team—they provided him only minimal information, likely to avoid scaring him—but from the internet. Survival rates dropped from the mid-eighties to only ten percent if it metastasized.

They pumped him full of radioactive tracer over the course of an hour and a half. He wasn't allowed to move around much so it could settle evenly throughout his body, which was _so not fun_. The only thing that kept him entertained while the infusion ran was texting Steve progressively more ludicrous messages, knowing he was at school and probably trying to focus.

They're filling me with some radioactive substance to look at all my bones. Do you think they'll show up green on the scans?

Or maybe I'll get superpowers.

Can you imagine? People injecting you with a mysterious substance and getting superpowers? That would be so cool.

More likely I'll just get radiation poisoning.

Have you seen what the radiation did to catfish in Chernobyl? It's gnarly. I saw it on some National Geographic documentary.

Oh god.

Steve, this is important.

Does the hospital get the National Geographic channel?

Before he received any sort of response from Steve, they came to take him for his scan. Which entailed lying absolutely still for an hour. It sucked. There was no more eloquent way to put it. What sucked almost as much was the ungodly number of times he used the bathroom after. They dumped a ton of fluids into his system to flush out the tracer and minimize his radiation exposure. He understood the reasoning, but that didn't make it less frustrating to fight his way through pain med-induced drowsiness to go relieve himself.

Once the results of all the tests came back, Dr. Potts laid out the game plan.

His tumor sat nestled in a particularly difficult spot, in both his humerus and scapula, but it hadn't metastasized. Yet. They needed to work quickly. In the span of two hours, the next year of Bucky's life morphed from a yellow brick road of soccer games, homework, and Friday nights with his friends to a black hole of tests, surgeries, and chemo treatments.

He couldn't go back to school at all during treatment; his immune system would be too fragile to handle continued exposure to anywhere so crowded. He couldn't put too much weight on his left arm or otherwise do any rigorous activity because the tumor compromised its structural integrity and he could easily break it. As if it wasn't fucked up enough already. If that was true, he was shocked the joint hadn't broken already during one of his diving saves.

As far as Bucky could tell from the information presented to him, he couldn't do much of anything for as long as these seventeen rounds of chemo took. Oh, and for the second half of that he'd be able to do even less because the position of the tumor and the sheer number of important structures it was tangled up in meant it couldn't be excised without removing his entire left arm.

Upon hearing that, Bucky knew he'd well and truly cried himself out. Because nothing should have made him weep harder than knowing he was doomed to lose forever the one thing that had been part of his identity for most of his life: goalkeeping. Yet he didn't so much as feel moisture building in the back of his eyes. He just went numb. No one-armed goalie could ever be effective; half the net would be all but completely unguarded.

With the final announcement that his port would be placed the following morning followed by round one of chemotherapy, the doctors left the three Barnes alone to digest everything they'd just been told. None of them could bring themselves to say a word. The silence shattered when Bucky's phone sounded with Steve's text tone:

Yes, Gravesen gets National Geographic.

~0~

"Bucky, you need to let me know what to say to the guys," Steve said over the phone. Bucky had called him when his parents' palpable anxiety grew to suffocating and he'd forced them to go home for the night.

"I know, I know," Bucky sighed.

"They keep asking me where you are and I'm running out of excuses. Have they been texting you too?"

"Yeah."

"Have you responded to any of them?"

"No."

"Well you'd better get on that. You're freaking them out."

"I'll freak them out even more if I tell them the truth."

"That might be true, but you can't exactly hide this from them."

"I just don't know _how_ to tell them."

"I get that. Telling people about my diagnosis is always hard. But it gets easier once they know."

"Really?"

"I swear."

"I don't want to do it over text, but I don't know when I'll see them in person next. Maybe you should just tell them."

"No. I'm not doing this for you, sorry. You need to accept it, and this is a big part of doing that."

"Fine. How about I group FaceTime them, but include you too for moral support?"

"I'm okay with that. I'm going to hang up and I expect that call to come in the next ten minutes, okay? You need to get this over with."

"Fine." Bucky listened as Steve hung up, then took a deep breath. More than anything, he feared how they would react. What if they didn't even want to be his friend anymore? What if they asked questions he couldn't answer, or said something that made him start crying again? Sobbing in front of Steve was one thing, but the rest of them had never seen that side of Bucky before. Hopefully, they wouldn't see it now. He steeled himself and pressed the buttons to call the group.

One by one, the faces of his four best friends popped up and began drifting around the screen. He focused on Steve at first and saw him mouth, "You got this."

"Bucky, you're alive!" Gabe exclaimed. "We were really starting to worry."

Maybe soon they _would_ have to worry about that.

"Yeah, I'm still kicking," Bucky stated, voice devoid of its usual lightness.

"Wait, are you in a hospital?" Jim asked as he scrutinized Bucky's background. He nodded.

"Your shoulder's that bad, huh. Do they have to operate?" Gabe asked.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Timmy added.

Frankly, Bucky couldn't answer that second question. "It's…complicated," he began. His throat seized around the next words and he looked to Steve for reassurance. "I didn't hurt my shoulder, exactly, but something showed up on the scans. They found a tumor called Ewing's sarcoma." He chose to word the explanation in a detached manner, the way a doctor would have described his case. Avoiding the self-condemning phrase "I have cancer" helped him distance himself from it and avoid a breakdown.

"Holy shit, man. That's cancer, isn't it?" Gabe said. Bucky nodded grimly.

"I'm so sorry," Timmy said sincerely. "Is there anything we can do?"

"Yeah, anything," Jim continued.

"Just keep me up to speed on all the Hudson Creek gossip, okay? I'm gonna be out for the rest of year."

"That's a long time," Timmy practically whimpered. They were all used to Steve taking leave from school for treatment, but he'd never been gone longer than a few months. Compared to that, a year felt like forever.

"I know. But I _will_ be back, and I better not find out you've replaced me." He wished that came out with as much confidence as he planned it to.

"Of course not!" Jim assured. "No one else in our entire school could even come close to being as annoying as you are." The sheer normalcy of the comment made Bucky feel a hundred times better. In that moment he knew it was beyond worth it to tell his friends.

"Are you gonna be able to play when this is all over?" Gabe questioned. Just like that, his world came crashing down again. He wanted to lie and say he'd be back on the field as soon as his doctors cleared him, but he couldn't allow himself to perpetuate false hope for Gabe nor for himself.

Bucky shook his head solemnly. "Because of where the tumor is, they…they have to take my whole arm off."

"You'd still be better than half the goalies in the league." Maybe that was true, but Bucky knew it would be unbearable to try and play only to be reminded of what he used to be.

"You'll still have both feet, maybe you can learn to play center back or striker," Timmy suggested.

"Maybe." When he was younger he'd played various positions, but by the time he was nine it was clear he belonged in the net and that's where he'd stayed ever since. He'd really need to hone his skills if he wanted to make the team for any other position, and it wasn't like he could start practicing any time soon.

"You'll figure something out," Steve assured, speaking up for the first time since the conversation began. "Worst case scenario, you retire with the legacy of being the best goalie Hudson Creek's ever seen." When put like that, it didn't sound so bad.

"Can we come visit?" Jim asked.

"I've got kind of a busy week ahead and I have no clue how I'll be feeling," Bucky admitted. "It might be best to wait until round one is over and I get discharged."

"Okay."

"Until then, feel free to text me, but I can't promise I'll respond quickly. And for the love of God, do not get #TeamBucky or #BuckyStrong trending on social media, or I will hit you so hard you end up in here with me."

"So #BattlingForBarnes is okay?" Jim asked. Bucky laughed so hard he nearly dropped his phone. Having these four morons by his side might make this journey that much more bearable.


	4. Kickoff

Steve assured him time and time again that ports were superior to any other method of injecting medicine, but that did little to lessen Bucky's fear of it. He asked why they couldn't use the IV line already in his arm, and the answer had the opposite effect of calming him down. They needed a line going straight into the larger veins near his heart because the toxic chemo drugs and the sheer number of sticks he was to receive over the course of treatment would destroy his smaller peripheral veins. So a port it was.

He said yes to sedation again, though he considered for a long time if he really wanted to sleep away more of his last hours before chemo began. Ultimately, the desire to _not_ be aware of people digging around in his chest won out. When he woke up, he found Steve sitting beside him instead of his parents.

"Hey Buck," he greeted. Bucky didn't know what time it was, but he hadn't known his friend was coming at all today.

"Hey," he mumbled back.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better than I'm gonna be when they put this thing to use."

"You're probably right about that, unfortunately."

"How'd you feel after yours?" Bucky asked.

"It hurt, but I was just relieved to be done with PICC lines."

"Oh yeah, you used to hate those."

"Yep. Anyway, I brought you something."

"What?"

"The guys and I went shopping yesterday, and we picked out some things for you."

"You didn't have to do that."

"We wanted to," Steve assured. He picked up a tote bag and passed it to Bucky, who was very curious as to what his friends had gotten him.

"This better not be gag gift," Bucky muttered. Steve only smirked. Reaching inside, his fingertips met something incredibly soft and fluffy. He pulled out a pair of white socks with wolves' faces on them.

"Timmy picked those out," Steve informed him. "To advertise your cool new sports nickname."

"I'm still not even sure who started it. And why did they pick that name?"

"Well, your jersey is white instead of blue like the rest of the team's. And there's a lot of howling going on at those games, especially when you do something awesome. It's all in there, actually. Look for the paper." He pointed to the bag, and Bucky reached around until his hand met paper. It was a copy of their school newspaper _the Howler_ and the front page, sure enough, contained a picture of him on the field at the most recent game, crouching before the goal in anticipation of the next shot. The headline read, "White Wolf Bucky Barnes Secures Victory for Howling Commandos."

"You're basically famous," Steve said with a proud smile.

"I'm about to be famous for a very different reason," Bucky countered. "Someone has to tell Coach Philips I'm being forced into early retirement."

"I think your parents told me they took care of it."

"So he already knows?"

"Yeah."

"Great. He must be devastated to lose me now that we've made the playoffs."

"Bucky, I'm sure he's more devastated over the fact that you're sick than the fact they might not have a great rest of the season."

"It certainly doesn't help matters any," he sighed. The next thing he pulled from the bag was a black face mask.

"You're going to have to wear one sometimes like I do, and I figured you'd want something more your style than the disposable ones they have here."

"For sure. Thank you. I'm very glad you didn't get me one to match your American flag patterned one. Black is much cooler."

"To each his own."

Bucky's hand encountered more soft fabric next, and it turned out to be a warm hat patterned like a soccer ball. He hadn't thought much about this aspect of his future until now. After endless arguing with his mother over what she considered the excessive length of his hair, he was going to lose it all anyway. At least his head wouldn't get cold, thanks to Steve.

"It gets pretty cold here, and I thought you'd want to have that to keep you warm later," Steve explained. "Gabe chose the pattern."

"I figured," Bucky huffed. The only things remaining in the bag were various snacks. Most he loved, but then he saw the lemon drops. "Why'd you get these? You know I can't stand lemon drops."

"Did they tell you about scapegoat foods?" Steve asked.

"Oh yeah." He vaguely remembered the concept being a part of his treatment briefing. They wanted him to eat something he didn't like before chemo so he didn't associate the nausea with any foods he wanted to enjoy in the future.

"I know you hate them, but it's better to endure eating one of those before chemo than risk hating one of your favorite foods for the rest of your life."

"That makes sense. Thank you, all of you. This means a lot." Careful of the new dressing on his chest, Bucky leaned forward and hugged his friend.

"You're welcome," Steve replied. When they released, he continued, "I have to ask you something. Do you want me to be here for your first chemo, or would you rather it just be your parents? I can stay or go; whatever you want."

Bucky hadn't paused to consider the people he wanted to accompany him to his first dose. On the one hand, Steve let him see everything about his CF treatment and maybe Bucky owed him the same. But on the other hand, he _really_ didn't want to put his best friend in the situation of having to comfort him without any knowledge of just how much he'd be relying on him for that comfort. He didn't want to lose control and potentially traumatize Steve in addition to himself. Maybe he'd let him accompany him to later doses, when he understood just how badly it affected him, but not this first one.

"I'd rather you go," Bucky said hesitantly. "I don't want to make you watch until I know exactly what you'll have to see."

"I've sat with people during chemo before," Steve reminded him.

"Yeah, but it affects everyone differently. Thank you for offering, but I'll let Mom and Dad bear the brunt of this one."

"Okay. I'm just a call or text away if you change your mind."

"I know. Thanks."

"Any time."

"How much does having your port accessed hurt?" Bucky asked suddenly. The question had been sitting in the back of his mind for the entire conversation, and it finally burst to the forefront.

"It's worse than an IV," Steve said honestly. "But the nurses here are really good at getting them on the first try, and you get used to it after the third or fourth time. The needle looks huge, but the anticipation of it is usually worse than the actual pain. And ask for numbing cream, it works wonders."

"Okay." Bucky believed Steve's every word. When it came time for the oncology nurse, Darcy, to stick him—about an hour after he sucked on a horrid lemon drop and applied the requested numbing cream—he understood just how spot on Steve's explanation had been. Bucky was prepared, but his parents weren't. They seemed more terrified than he felt. Fear didn't settle inside him until the actual chemo drugs began. He was the only patient in the chemo clinic at the time, so nurses Darcy and Jane both kept a pretty close eye on him. At first the meds burned on their way in, but that sensation eased and finally disappeared within half an hour or so. Bucky didn't really start to feel any adverse effects until the infusion neared its end.

They returned him to his room and hooked him up to more fluids and anti-nausea meds. For a brief moment he convinced himself they were working so well that he wouldn't even get sick, but of course he was sorely mistaken. As un-fun as every experience since the beginning of this disaster had been, this was the most un-fun, and it lasted the longest. He'd always hated nausea, far more than headaches, muscle aches, sore throats, or any other malady. To add to his misery, heaving aggravated his shoulder enough to bring his pain levels back up to unbearable despite the continued meds. No sleep lasting longer than thirty minutes was achieved that first night, and at no point did he regret sending Steve away. This was definitely worse than any state he'd ever seen Steve in, except for maybe that one incident when they trialed him on a new drug to clear his lungs with unexpected and terrifying side effects. Bucky had never seen Steve so shaken, not before that and not since. He didn't want to be the reason his best friend got that scared again.

By the time morning dawned, Bucky's main complaint was exhaustion. He finally managed to sleep for several hours in one sitting, only to be woken by Nurse Peggy checking on him. After she left, he couldn't fall back asleep and grew bored. He didn't have the energy to get out of bed, but he needed to do _something_. Maybe it wasn't the best thing to do for his mental health at this point, but Bucky found himself searching the internet and social media for stories about other people who'd fought Ewing's sarcoma. It was surprisingly easy once he found the first person; they all networked with each other as parts of the same cancer community. He used to think cancer was rare in kids, but he quickly learned it was anything but. In fact, it was the number one cause of death by disease in children.

He read the stories of fellow fighters like a knight listening to his comrades tell tales of glorious battle. The only thing missing was the glory. After less than an hour of reading, he understood one thing above all else: it was going to be rough. A girl diagnosed at age four was now five years cancer free, but with a fused spine and four missing ribs. An eighteen-year-old passed away after fighting for eight years. Another had her tibia replaced with an adult's arm bone, only for the limb salvage to fail and lead to a complicated below-the-knee-amputation. Worse, another girl died at just eleven years old. Limb salvage. Death. Amputation. More death. He knew he would fall into one of those categories, but would he eventually enter another?

Bucky shook his head to clear it of thoughts of death and continued his research for as long as his foggy brain would allow. He found several fellow fighters at different hospitals that kept blogs or Instagram accounts about their journeys and followed them. It helped to know he wasn't alone in facing this particular beast, that other people out there experienced almost exactly what he did. Steve's knowledge and advice was great, but he didn't have Ewing's. Neither did any of his hospital friends. Bucky needed some first person perspective on what to expect in his treatment course and beyond, and he found it.

He also found something that completely turned his view of his future on its head: amputee soccer.

The first information he found was actually a stand-up comedy bit making fun of it, which would have been disgustingly offensive and politically incorrect if not for the fact that the comedian himself was an amputee who played for the US national team. Bucky eagerly played the video and listened intently:

"I think amputee soccer was probably invented by some internet trolls trying to think of a hilarious prank: What if the people playing soccer only have one foot?

"If they have one foot, how will they kick the ball?

"They'll have crutches!

"How will the goalie catch the ball if he's on crutches?

"Oh, that's the other great part! The goalies…they all have one arm.

"And those are the real rules of amputee soccer, people!"

When before Bucky despaired over the imminent loss of his favorite thing in the world, now he had hope that he didn't have to give it up forever. His attitude surrounding his eventual amputation completely turned around now that he knew there would be an arena where he could still shine. If he could be as good as he was with two arms, then after hours and hours of practice he could definitely be good enough with only one arm to play for an amputee soccer team. Having a goal in mind helped him focus on something beyond how miserable this next year was going to be.

For as long as he could stay awake, he watched more and more videos of amputee soccer matches from around the world. Each and every player was amazing in their own right, some able to throw themselves forward on their crutches to kick a ball heading behind them or take a tumble and get right back to their foot with as much grace as an able-bodied person. But Bucky mostly watched the goalies. The goals were smaller than standard, which made sense, though the fundamental technique of the position remained the same. At least Bucky wasn't a fielder who had to completely relearn footwork after losing a leg. That was a decent silver lining.

One particular player stuck out when he watched the highlights from Netherlands v Japan at the World Cup: Ulysses Klaue. He played goalkeeper for the Netherlands, was missing his left arm almost to the elbow, and guarded the net so well Bucky never would have known he was at a significant disadvantage. Even shots taken towards his bad side couldn't get past him. Bucky was mesmerized. He forwarded the video to Gabe with the message: "Give me three years."

Gabe responded: "I doubt you'll need that long. Go get 'em, White Wolf."

~0~

Bucky conceded to allowing Steve to visit the next day, when the most intense of the immediate side effects had passed. When forty minutes passed beyond the time they'd agreed on, he began to worry. The only thing that ever made Steve late was technical difficulties or health issues, so Bucky was convinced he'd either broken his oxygen equipment somehow or gotten sick. He was minutes away from calling Mrs. Rogers when Steve burst in looking no worse for wear.

"Sorry I'm late," he announced.

"Where the hell have you been?" Bucky questioned. "I was starting to freak out."

"Sorry. I got here and I ran into Carol. We started talking and I just completely lost track of time."

"I should have known I would play second fiddle to Carol in this place. Why didn't you bring her with you? I think it's about time I meet Carol as a fellow Gravesen resident and not just as your friend."

"Oh, okay. I wasn't sure you were up for more company. Speaking of which, where are your parents?"

"I sent them home for sleep and showers. Last night was rough."

"I can imagine." Steve headed back for the door to go find Carol. "I'll be back."

Now, Bucky had met Carol before. She'd been here when he visited Steve during his last inpatient stay in July. At the time, she was relatively new to Gravesen yet as comfortable with the environment as if she'd been there as long as Steve. Steve talked about her all the time, how she'd come up with the innovative idea of creating the gauntlet, a chart to display how much of their autonomy they could maintain in the hospital. Back then, Bucky had found the concept morbid and a bit disturbing, but now that he was one of them he understood the need for simplification of what they faced in here. He'd added his own name to the gauntlet and ceded everything to Thanatos except mind and soul.

"What gives? Did you land yourself in here just to make sure I don't steal your best friend?" Carol asked with a smirk as she followed Steve into the room.

"No," Bucky insisted, mortified by the accusation. He'd never thought about Carol as a potential best friend snatcher; he was glad Steve had someone to keep him company on the days when Bucky couldn't be there.

"I admire your effort, but isn't this taking things a little too far?"

Bucky tried to formulate a response, but he couldn't string a coherent thought together, much less translate one into actual words. He just stared blankly at Carol, half hoping he would disappear or that Steve would intervene.

"Take a breath, I'm only messing with you," Carol said.

"Oh…good," Bucky managed to reply.

"You should've seen the look on your face." Steve was about to burst out laughing. Now Bucky blushed with embarrassment at falling for what, in retrospect, was rather obvious sarcasm.

"Really, I'm sorry to hear that you're here with a patient ID instead of a visitor's badge," Carol said genuinely.

"Thank you. At least I can look forward to the company."

"You sure can. And you're not the only newbie, there's one in 1225 who just moved in. Speaking of which," she turned to Steve, "Before you leave today, you should stop by and show him the ol' Rogers Razzle Dazzle."

"I'm sorry, _what_?" Bucky nearly choked on an outburst of laughter.

Steve rolled his eyes. "It's her nickname for the way I give tours. For the record, I do not endorse the title."

"You should," Carol stated.

"I second that," Bucky chimed in.

"Both of you, shut up. Bucky, don't let her corrupt you."

"I think you mean enlighten him," Carol corrected. "As in, bring to his awareness the fact that you're basically the hospital's mascot."

"I am not! If anyone's the hospital's mascot, it's Dr. Lee," Steve retorted.

"I'm not going to argue with that because you make a good point. But you have to admit it is kind of adorable how he takes it upon himself to make the newbies feel welcome."

"I just do what I think I would appreciate if someone did for me."

"Very noble of you, Steve," Bucky said. "I expect the full Rogers Razzle Dazzle when you eventually show me around this place."

"That's the spirit!" Carol offered Bucky a high-five, which he accepted with a satisfying smack. "Rogers, you have excellent taste in friends."

"Do I? I feel like I get made fun of an awful lot for someone with supposedly good friends."

"That's what friends are for." Carol punched him playfully in the arm. "Well, I would say it was nice to see you, Bucky, but it's not, not in these circumstances. Also, I would say get well soon, but I know how long this road is. What I will say is that I hope you get all of the good nurses and none of the rare side effects." With a nod of finality, Carol departed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How funny is it that the other canonical amputee in the MCU is also missing a left hand?
> 
> Also, that bit about amputee soccer is from a real comedian who plays for the US National Amputee Soccer team. His name is Josh Sundquist and you should definitely look him up if you're interested in a good laugh. He also does incredible Halloween costumes every year, and this time he was baby Groot :)


	5. Midfield

Carol's abrupt departure left Bucky in a stunned silence for a few moments. He re-gathered his scattered thoughts and turned to Steve. "So you and Carol…" Bucky said with an indicative nod.

"What about us?" Steve asked. Bucky restrained himself from laughing at his friend's cluelessness and just raised his eyebrows. Steve took a solid thirty seconds to catch on. "Oh! No. Absolutely not."

"Really?" Bucky didn't entirely believe him.

"Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying I've never thought about it, but she's not into guys. She made that abundantly clear."

"Oh, I see."

"Besides, the hospital is not an ideal environment to kindle a romance of any kind."

"Gravesen is one big friend zone. Got it."

"That's a good way to summarize it. But once you're better and get back to school, I'll bet you're gonna have to fend off attention instead of having to seek it out."

"What? No. If that's the case, it would happen to you too."

"No, I'm chronic. That's a crucial difference. Nobody wants to make that kind of long-term commitment."

"I did."

"You were way too young to understand what you were getting into when we became friends."

"And now that I'm old enough, have I backed out? Abandoned you to fight all sixty five roses by yourself?"

"No," Steve admitted with a chuckle. "I guess you're special."

"Or maybe you are," Bucky countered.

"I do have a rare genetic mutation."

"And I have a rare cancer. I guess we're even."

"Fair enough. I'm gonna go introduce myself to the new kid and show him around."

"Don't forget the ol' Rogers Razzle Dazzle or I'll tell Carol on you," Bucky taunted.

"All right."

Bucky found it fascinating that Steve appeared to be in charge of giving Gravesen inaugural tours. Maybe the hospital paid him to give the new kids a patient's eye view of their new surroundings. Either that, or Steve was that concerned with making everyone feel welcome. He grew tired enough to doze off for a bit, until Steve's return woke him up.

"Oh man," Steve sighed. Bucky raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "He looked ready to fall apart at the slightest provocation, poor kid."

"How old?" Bucky asked.

"Maybe twelve-ish. I'm not sure. He wouldn't answer any of my questions—didn't speak at all, actually. I only learned his name by reading his ID bracelet, it's Peter."

"Were his parents here?"

"No sign of them."

"Weird."

"He's so skinny, Bucky," and now Steve sounded genuinely shaken. "I spend a lot of time with sick kids, so I'm used to seeing people who could stand to gain weight, but this kid…it's bad. Fortunately, they already have him NG-tubed, but by the looks of it he should have gotten here months ago."

"Yikes. And you said he didn't say a word?"

"Not one. I was lucky if he responded with a nod instead of a shrug."

"Do you think he can speak?"

"I have no idea, and I'm not going to assume either way. Whatever the case, I just hope he gets the help he needs."

"Me too."

~0~

With round one of chemo under his belt and his pain and nausea sufficiently controlled—meaning low enough for him to at least partially function as a human being—on oral meds, Bucky got to go home. Both he and his parents were understandably excited. The move itself exhausted him, so he spent the majority of that first day alternating between sleeping and watching more amputee soccer videos. His mother fretted to the point Bucky had to tell her to back off and stop smothering him. She found something else to fuss about, which was the fact that Thanksgiving was just around the corner.

After his diagnosis Bucky completely lost track of the date, so the proximity of the holiday took him by surprise. They couldn't go to a large gathering or invite many people over because of Bucky's newly compromised immune system, so the plan was to get together with the Rogers. They'd done Thanksgivings like this before, when weather or other circumstances prevented them from meeting up with extended family. Steve's parents offered to host since they figured Bucky's would be busy taking care of him, but Mrs. Barnes insisted she needed something to take her mind off of everything. Bucky was glad Steve's parents hadn't forced the issue, or he'd have his mother breathing down his neck at all hours.

The most demanding task he put her up to was the occasional shopping trip to get something to satisfy a particular craving. Everything else she could do in between meal prep steps or delegate to his father in the hours he was home from work. All things considered, he felt pretty good the first few days—he felt like utter crap, but he sensed that it could be way worse. His friends proved their usefulness by periodically sending funny videos and memes along with the occasional inquiry into how he was doing. Bucky was honest with them, but he didn't include any details.

They also told him all about the second playoff game, but only because he demanded it. He could tell they didn't want to tell him for fear of making him feel bad about missing out. Bucky expected to hear that they lost (and they did, handedly), but he didn't expect to hear about what else went down. The team dedicated the match to him, each and every one of them lacing their cleats with gold, the color representing pediatric cancer awareness. Gabe sent him a bunch of photos of the team completely decked out in gold before the match. Bucky felt a combination of gratefulness, embarrassment, despair, and joy knowing his team hadn't simply forgotten about him now that he couldn't be there in person.

Thanksgiving day arrived nearly a week after Bucky's discharge from Gravesen. Steve and his family arrived at the Barnes' apartment at four, giving them plenty of time to socialize before dinner. The adults headed straight for the kitchen while Steve and Bucky fled back to his room. They'd spent countless hours in here together doing homework or playing games, but the dynamic felt somewhat different now. They skirted around the topic of Bucky's illness for nearly an hour before Steve clearly couldn't take it anymore and asked, "Seriously, how are you feeling with all this?"

"I'm doing okay. I wasn't lying to you the twenty times you asked that over text," Bucky assured him.

"I never said I didn't believe you."

"You asked me in person because you know it's easier to tell if I'm lying when we're face-to-face."

"Fine. I believe you. I just worry."

"I know you do. Now you know how I feel."

"It sucks."

"Yeah, being your friend is not the easiest position in the world. Especially when you act like your goal in life is to set the record for most chest infections in a lifetime."

"I don't actively _try_ to get infections, they just happen," Steve defended.

"I'm just teasing. I know you're as diligent as possible with your treatments, sometimes it just seems like they aren't as effective at protecting you as they should be."

Steve shrugged. "They do their best."

Bucky sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The motion reminded him of one inevitable side effect that he hadn't thought about nearly enough: hair loss. It was bound to start falling out any day now, and that was not something Bucky wanted to endure. He looked Steve right in the eye and proclaimed, "I have an idea."

"Why do I not like where this is going?"

"Relax, you'll be fine. I want you to shave my head."

"What? Why? Has it even started falling out yet?"

"Not really. But I want to stay ahead of it."

"It's possible you're one of the rare cases that doesn't experience hair loss with this chemo regimen."

"Unlikely. I'm going to go grab my dad's razor, and you're going to do this for me, got it?"

"Your parents are going to kill me when they see what I've done to you."

"I'll take the blame for it. They can't get mad at me for anything anymore." Bucky snuck into his parents' bathroom and snatched the razor, bringing it back into his room without drawing the attention of any of the adults in the house. He handed it off to Steve and plopped himself down in front of him.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," Bucky said firmly.

"You don't want to wait a bit longer?"

"Just do it!" If Steve didn't start trimming now, Bucky knew he would chicken out. He heard the razor's hum and braced himself for the inevitable. The sensation was indescribable. Bucky hadn't been bald since birth, always taking more pride in his hair than most boys his age. After that bet with Gabe resulted in him wearing a half bun at their first game, he'd realized the style kind of suited him and had worn it that way at every subsequent game. It had become somewhat of a signature look for him on the field. He calculated it would take around two years after treatment ended to achieve that length again. That was a long time.

"Done," Steve announced.

"Am I bleeding?" Bucky asked jokingly.

"Not even a nick."

"I'm impressed. Where'd you learn how to shave a head?"

"Gravesen."

"Is that a unit they cover in your school?"

"No. But the Ancient One could totally teach it if it was. She shaves her head."

"Why?"

"No one really knows." Steve stepped away and starting gathering fallen hair to throw away. Between the two of them, they hid the fallout just in time to get called to dinner. Bucky threw on his soccer ball beanie and followed Steve to the table. Mr. Barnes nearly dropped the turkey he was carrying when he saw what they'd done. Luckily, he recovered in time to bring the bird safely to the table.

"Oh my god, what did you do?" Bucky's mom asked, shocked.

"I had Steve shave my head. He has real potential as a barber," Bucky said nonchalantly. Steve snickered. Their parents did anything but.

"Why didn't you tell us you wanted to do this already?" his dad questioned.

"It was a snap decision. It was going to fall out anyway; I wanted to be in control of when that happened." Bucky felt regret creeping up his throat. His parents appeared to be mad at him, though he couldn't figure out why. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, you don't have to apologize, Bucky, I'm afraid I was just a little startled. The beanie is nice, though, where'd you get it?"

"Gabe picked it out."

"I guess I'll have to get used to it," she sighed. "I haven't kissed a bald head since you were a baby." She stepped over, pulled back his beanie a little bit, and did just that. Bucky could hear Steve holding back laughter, but he refrained from pushing his mother away. She released him and the six of them sat down at the table, the awkwardness (for the most part) evaporated. Bucky noticed both his parents and Steve's glance at him more often and for longer than was typical. He tried not to be self conscious about it, knowing this was how he would look for the next year, but it was difficult not to squirm under the scrutiny. As food was passed around the table, Bucky filled his plate with miniscule quantities of each dish. His appetite bordered on nonexistent and he didn't know which foods he even liked anymore. The medicine had completely flipped his taste buds upside down and inside out. Beside him, Steve downed his enzyme pills with a gulp of water and dug in.

They enjoyed the meal in silence for a moment before the adults struck up conversation again. Bucky suspected Steve's parents had already interrogated the Barnes about how they were coping with his diagnosis, otherwise they were tactfully avoiding the subject altogether. They discussed the outcome of the football game from earlier that day, which Bucky all but tuned out. He didn't find football a particularly interesting sport to watch in the first place. It was way slower than soccer. By halftime he'd fallen asleep and didn't wake up until the postgame programs began.

Everyone else at the table had nearly finished their initial portions, but Bucky had only managed to stomach maybe one tenth of the quantity he normally ate on this holiday. Most of the things on his plate tasted like some variety of cardboard and the mouth sores that had made themselves known in the past twenty four hours ensured that he suffered with every bite. Maybe if it tasted good it would be worth the discomfort, but it didn't. So what if he didn't feast, at least the company was good.

His parents pretended not to notice his lack of intake, but he could tell it worried them. They'd probably try to force more nutrition into him later when the Rogers had left. "This year, more than ever, I'm thankful for this family," Mrs. Barnes announced when the conversation reached a pause. She looked at each person seated at the table one by one. "I couldn't do this without you all."

Bucky didn't particularly want to hear his mother get all sappy and sentimental, but he recognized that she definitely needed to. "We wouldn't want to be anywhere else," Mr. Rogers said. "You guys are family." Unnoticed by the adults, Steve mimed gagging and Bucky struggled not to laugh audibly and ruin the sweetness of the moment.

"You've been there for us through everything with Steve, and I'm grateful for that every day of the year," Mrs. Rogers continued. Their two families, for all intents and purposes, were one and the same, as they had been since the Rogers moved into the neighborhood. Bucky treated Steve's parents almost exactly like his own, and Steve did the same with Bucky's. In fact, often the only thing separating them was their last names.

"I'm thankful for all the experts at Gravesen who've kept me alive this long," Steve contributed.

"Us too," Steve's parents said.

"If I remember correctly, Gravesen is the main reason we moved here all those years ago, so I owe it double thanks because if it wasn't where it is, I never would have met Bucky."

The mushiness reached almost unbearable levels. If something didn't dispel the tension soon, Bucky would either start weeping or screaming and he didn't really want to do either. All eyes turned to him as they waited for him to participate in this saying of thanks.

"Honestly?" Bucky began. "I'm pretty darn thankful for Zofran."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I timed this pretty perfectly having the Thanksgiving chapter come out right before the holiday in real life. I swear that wasn't intentional. Also, I mentioned that the prequels intertwine pretty heavily among Bucky, Steve, and Parker. This is an example of that. I promise we will return to that moment from Parker's perspective. Also, congrats to those who guessed it was him last chapter :)


	6. Red Card

By Christmas he'd lost the stubble left on his head after Steve's shave job, his eyebrows, and fifteen pounds. His current regimen entailed chemo in two week cycles. Depending on the severity of the side effects, whether he needed blood transfusions, and a host of other factors he didn't even pretend to understand, he stayed at Gravesen anywhere from three to ten days during chemo then got to go home until his immune system recovered enough for the next dose. Though he hadn't done the exact math, he felt like he spent way more time in the hospital than out of it.

It had barely been a month and a half and he was already exhausted. He missed his friends, he missed soccer, he even missed going to school. His parents hired a tutor to ensure he kept up with his schoolwork from home and he attended Gravesen's school when he was feeling up to it—which was not often. When he sat in that classroom with no company except for Carol and the Ancient One he found it impossible to pay attention. If they'd been quizzed on the information taught in class he would have failed every single time. Information just didn't stick in his brain the way it used to, another side effect of chemotherapy. In patients younger than him some of the medications could cause permanent learning disabilities.

In the grand scheme of things he saw no value in Gravesen school, so he stopped going. His last day in the hospital after round three of chemo he easily could have gone, but he decided to binge watch a show on Netflix instead. Between starting high school and his soccer practice schedule he hadn't had time to watch the new season of Riverdale when it first came out. Now was as good a time as any to catch up, so he watched episode after episode, only fleetingly noticing when the clock indicated he should be heading to the classroom.

The next day, just before he was discharged, his mother brought up the memory issues to Dr. Potts. She definitely overplayed their severity, but Bucky didn't correct her. Dr. Potts brought up the possibility of stopping one of his drugs to lessen the effects, but after a thorough discussion they decided it wasn't worth the increased risk of relapse. Bucky found the whole incident mildly hilarious and relayed it to Steve over FaceTime as soon as he got home.

"You watched Riverdale instead of going to school?" Steve confirmed.

"Yeah."

"Can't say I blame you. I just hope you won't have to repeat ninth grade since you're missing most of it."

"I'm keeping up. I'm just as diligent with doing my tutor's homework as I am about taking my meds, I promise."

"Okay. But don't overwork yourself."

"I won't," Bucky promised.

He spent the entire week leading up to Christmas worrying that he'd spike a fever or something and be forced to spend it in the hospital, but luck was on his side. He left Gravesen after round three on December twenty first and managed to stay out. They'd started putting him on appetite stimulants between rounds to try and keep his weight up, so he actually managed a reasonable Christmas Eve dinner, much to his mother's joy. They watched Home Alone, Bucky's favorite Christmas movie since he was a little kid, and he enjoyed a rare day of feeling less terrible than usual.

On Christmas morning his father made waffles. Bucky watched him whisking batter while sucking idly on a candy cane from his stocking. He wore his fuzzy white wolf socks from his friends' care package and new warm pajama pants. To top it off, he covered his bare head with a snowman beanie. With Christmas music playing softly in the background, the three of them opened gifts.

Bucky and Steve had worked together on what to get for their parents. They ultimately came up with the idea to get them journals, complete with personalized cover art, since both of their families were fond of tangible relics of family history and whatnot. Bucky's mom had an entire drawer full of just scrapbooks. Steve did most of the work on the art portion, but Bucky made sure to incorporate at least some of his own hand.

When she opened it, Bucky made her promise not to use it to keep track of his oncologist appointments or anything like that. "Of course not," she replied. "I'll use it to write about important things going on in our lives. For example, I'm going to write a detailed description of your reaction when we give you your present."

"Oh really? Now I'm excited." Bucky tore open the box she handed to him and pulled out a tee shirt. He didn't understand the hype until he flipped it around and read the front: It cost an arm and a leg, but I was able to negotiate. Bucky stared at it, dumbfounded, before he burst out laughing.

"We thought it would be rather funny, afterwards," his father explained.

"I think so too."

"But that's not all," his mom stated, barely concealing her obvious excitement.

"There's more?"

"Yes. You see, we recently got a phone call," his father explained.

"From?" Bucky asked.

"The Make-a-Wish Foundation," they told him. Bucky's jaw dropped. His whole life, that organization had been something entirely separate, the magical group that allowed little kids with grave illnesses to meet their idols or have the vacation of a lifetime. Though he was obviously excited, it saddened him to recognize that he qualified as sick enough to deserve their attention.

"That's…that's incredible," he stammered.

"Start thinking about how you want to spend your Wish. When you finish treatment we can do whatever you want."

"Wow. I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," his mother encouraged. "I know this is kind of bittersweet, but at least you'll have something to look forward to, right?"

"Yeah. I just have no idea what I want to do."

"That's okay. You've got time. Once they promise you a Wish they can't give it away to someone else who has their mind made up," his dad explained. None of them mentioned the uncertainty surrounding this Christmas gift. "When he finished treatment" was about as specific as "When the world ends." They had no way of knowing when it would be or if it would happen at all. Scans showed his tumor was responding to the treatment, but Ewing's was unpredictable. There was always a chance he'd never get to spend his Wish. But he tried not to think about that possibility, instead focusing on the multitude of possibilities for how he could spend it.

He called Steve after they'd cleaned up all the wrapping paper and told him everything. "You get a Wish? That's awesome!"

"Yeah, it kinda is. I'm honestly still shocked."

"Do you have any idea what you want to do?"

"Not yet, but I'm sure I'll be thinking about it nonstop for the next six months."

"I'm not going to demand you bring me along, but you do have to tell me all about it when it happens."

"Of course! Anyway, how was your Christmas?"

"Pretty typical. I got some really nice colored pencils. Did you watch Home Alone?"

"Is Mrs. McAllister a terrible mother?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

"I'm assuming It's a Wonderful Life was on at your place?"

"You assume correctly."

"You guys really love that movie, huh?"

"It's a classic."

"It's old."

"That's part of the definition of classic."

"Whatever."

"I gotta go, my mom's calling me to help her bake cookies," Steve said.

"I might have to stop by and steal some."

"That's the appetite stimulants talking."

"Whoever it is, they're talking _loud_."

"You're crazy. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas."

~0~

He had a date to count down to now: March twenty sixth. Unless something veered drastically in another direction, that was the date that surgeons would free him of the majority of his tumor and the entirety of his left arm. In some twisted way, he was looking forward to it. Once it was over he could stop dreading it. The waiting and wondering about the afterwards tortured him in a way completely different than any of the physical pain.

But the worst agony of all, dwarfing any caused by his tumor or chemo, wouldn't arrive until February.

January elapsed, introducing two new patients to the ward. First came Thor, who Bucky didn't get to know until nearly three weeks after his arrival because he could barely stop seizing long enough to get out of bed. Not long after, a leukemia patient moved in down the hall, but the infection risk was so high for the first month that they weren't allowed to see her. Bucky pitied the poor kid, having to face cancer without meeting the others here who fought it alongside her. He didn't know if he could have made it as far as he had without the support of Steve and Carol.

The most momentous thing to happen in January was Peter's first words. The kid didn't speak for his first two months here, but he still spent time with them and listened intently to the conversations that did occur. Bucky didn't witness the seemingly miraculous event, but Carol told him all about it—somewhat smugly, if he was honest. He didn't much care what got the kid to start talking, but he knew that Dr. Wilson and Dr. van Dyne could really help him now that he was willing to communicate.

January turned to February, heralding the return of young Clint. Steve and Clint went way back, both having spent almost their entire lives in and out of Gravesen. Another returner for cancer treatment: Nick, fresh out of remission and "really fucking pissed" at the world for giving him cancer again. He scared the hell out of Bucky at first, the eyepatch only adding to his ability to intimidate. But then he had a sobbing breakdown in the armchair across from Bucky during chemo, and Bucky recognized that Nick wasn't scary but just _scared_.

Bucky got a new next-door neighbor, Bruce, who they figured out was here following a suicide attempt. The kid was a bit older than Bucky and almost as quiet as Peter when he first arrived. Once he recovered physically from whatever he'd done to himself he began keeping a tight schedule, going about his day as if on autopilot. Every time Bucky tried to speak to him he appeared completely lost in his own head, but Bucky could tell he was ever so slowly returning to the world as Dr. Wilson adjusted his medication doses.

Last to join the party was Peter, scarcely recovered from brain surgery at his home hospital in Missouri and here for radiation, oral chemo, and observation for a particularly aggressive tumor. He quickly became Quill to avoid confusion, while the first Peter became Parker. Quill quickly bonded with Thor, being the only other patient to ever have experienced a seizure. With so many new friends around, things were livening up…until one plucked Jenga block sent the entire tower tumbling.

"I'm afraid things aren't looking good for me," Carol sent to the Gravesen group chat just seven days before it happened. The last time Bucky saw her she'd seemed fine, making fun of his inability to remember all the rules of Catan while they played with Clint and the new leukemia patient, Natasha, who'd finally been released to mingle with the other kids on the ward. It was her first game ever and she picked it up faster than Bucky despite barely knowing English.

Bucky didn't fully understand the gravity of her statement until he FaceTimed Steve later that evening and saw the grim look on his face. He'd seen the same message, Bucky knew, but he could tell Carol had told him more.

"There's nothing they can do," Steve whispered.

"I'm sorry." Bucky didn't know what else he could say. He tried to imagine how he would feel if Steve gave him that kind of news, but halted that train of thought _immediately_ because it was too horrible to even contemplate.

"Un—unless there's a donor in the next few days…" he trailed off, unable to say the condemning words.

"There's a chance that might happen." His voice lacked the sense of optimism he'd tried to infuse into it. Both Bucky and Steve understood the unlikelihood of that eventuality. Without any idea what else to do, he asked, "Is there anything I can do, Steve?"

He only shook his head and cried.

~0~

Bucky visited her two days after the message. She wasn't exaggerating when she said things weren't looking good. He would try and fail for weeks afterward to wipe the image of her in this state from his brain. It burned itself into his memory as permanently as the first time he'd witnessed one of Steve's severe asthma attacks. "What gives?" he asked her, recalling their first interaction as fellow patients. "Did you land yourself in here just to hog all the attention? Isn't that taking things a little too far?"

Carol chuckled, but it quickly turned into a hacking cough that had Bucky's hand poised over her call button before she waved him away, insisting she was fine. "Not sure even I could pull off an act like that."

"Alright." He sat down and tried not to focus on the sickly color of her skin.

"Bucky." Her tone indicated she had something very important to say.

"Carol."

"Steve's gonna take it hard."

"Hey, we don't know what's going to happen. There's always a chance—"

"No," she said with a sad smile. Bucky closed his mouth and cast his eyes downward, knowing the odds were far too slim to hope they'd turn in Carol's favor. "Steve's gonna take it hard, and I need you to tell me you'll take care of him."

"Of course I will," Bucky choked out.

"Good. And you'd better fight this cancer shit with everything you have, okay? Because Bucky, I will not entertain the thought of Steve someday losing you too."

"You know I can't promise anything." He had no way of knowing what is future would hold, especially when it came to Ewing's.

"I know," she sighed. "But try your best?"

"I'll try my best," he vowed.

~0~

It happened on February twenty ninth. A too-short life ended on the last day of a too-short month. A month which also happened to be American Heart Month, which was a cruel irony in Bucky's opinion. He did his best to be there for an inconsolable Steve, but as he'd been warned, there was nothing he could do for him beyond surreptitiously turn up the flow rate on his oxygen when the force of his sobbing made him short of breath.

Bucky cried his fair share of tears as well, partly for Carol and partly for Steve. He recalled how much Steve had struggled after little Scott passed away all those years ago and knew this experience would be worse. Gravesen had always been a second home for Steve, and Carol became a crucial part of that family. She transformed it from a terrifying castle of sterility into a welcoming house of camaraderie. The gauntlet, a physical representation of her influence, stood proudly in the common room, adorned with the names of all the fighters who had joined them since its creation.

"Steve, there's something we need to do," Bucky told him. He quickly fired off a text to the group chat, inviting anyone else who was able to join them in this venture.

"What?"

Bucky took him by the hand and guided him to the common room. Parker, Natasha, Clint, Nick, and Thor filtered in, all in various states of despair. They all knew Steve; despite not currently being admitted, he visited Bucky and Carol often enough that he'd gotten to know all the residents. Everyone looked to Bucky, wordlessly asking why he'd summoned them here.

He cleared his throat, unsure how to suggest what he had in mind. "Carol devised this gauntlet to mark our standing against Thanatos," he decided to say. "It shows us both what we maintain, and what we stand to regain. But it must also reflect what we've lost— _who_ we've lost."

The group nodded assent, and Bucky nudged Steve towards the poster. He reached up and ripped the mind X from Carol's self column and handed it over to Thanatos. Then, more slowly, did the same for her soul. Bucky felt a physical weight lift off his shoulders and noticed Steve appear ever so slightly less deadened by grief. It was a small thing, to be able to honor her fight like this, but Bucky knew even a small relief from the ache was worth the effort.

It wasn't enough to save Steve. His grief proved too immense to be diminished into a bearable state by Bucky's efforts or anyone else's. Bucky heard his breathing at the funeral and could tell he'd been neglecting his treatments, but he couldn't bring himself to confront him about it. A week after Carol's passing, they both got admitted to Gravesen again, Bucky for another round of chemo and Steve for a chest infection that took hold and spread rapidly without his medications or breathing treatments to hold it off. By that point, his respiratory system was so clogged up that Dr. Erskine wanted him doing his vest four times a day instead of two.

Steve was miserable. Bucky sat with him for some of the sessions, and a few times he got to coughing so violently that he vomited. Despite this, it was clear that the extra therapy was helping clear him out. After just a few days Bucky noticed improvement. His fifteenth birthday arrived, though nobody felt much like celebrating—least of all Bucky. He did, however, receive a gift of sorts from Steve. It was a drawing he said he completed weeks ago, depicting a future Bucky with his pre-cancer hair, both arms, and the tasteful stubble he used to joke about growing. They looked at it for a minute, laughed, and then cried together for half an hour.

Four days later, Steve burst into his room just as he was about to join Nat, Quill, and Thor for a round of Catan, eyes shining with tears waiting for the slightest additional provocation to start tumbling down his cheeks again. "Bucky, they're moving a new kid into Carol's old room. It's only been two weeks…it's too soon! I'm not ready!"

"Hey, shhh," Bucky cajoled. "Calm down, it's going to be okay." He glanced across the hall at room 1219 and observed the hustle and bustle indicative of a new patient. "This is just another new kid. They are _not_ replacing Carol, and they certainly do not need to see their future hallmates freaking out about what room they got assigned."

"I—I just don't want it to stop being _her_ room."

"I know. But it couldn't stay empty forever. A new kid moving in does not erase Carol, okay? That's why we have the gauntlet."

"Yeah, okay."

"There's only one thing this new kid needs that the hospital isn't already providing for them. It's something only you can give."

"What?"

Bucky had spent the last thirty seconds intensely debating with himself whether this comment would do more harm than good, but he decided to go through with it and deal with the repercussions either way. "The ol' Rogers Razzle Dazzle." Steve cracked up—thankfully. "You need to go over there and make this kid feel at home the way you always do, got it?"

"Got it."

Bucky joined up with his friends for Catan while Steve set off for the newbie's room. He played one of the worst games of his career because he was preoccupied with worrying about Steve and his handling of the newcomer. Bucky feared something would happen that set Steve off, scaring the hell out of the new kid, but when the two of them arrived in the common room as part of the tour his worries evaporated. This was the Gravesen Steve he knew, filled with an easy confidence and ability to take charge. As Bucky explained the current standings of the game, he smiled. Nobody else noticed it through his face mask, but he didn't need anyone but Steve to see.

Tony Stark turned out to be just what Steve needed—what they _all_ needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so strange to write the same scene from so many different perspectives. We've seen this exact moment from Tony's, Natasha's, Thor's, and Bucky's now. This prequel I actually finished writing second, followed by Steve's, which is where we're headed next. The Thorns of Sixty Five Roses might be my personal favorite of all the prequels, not just because I'm insanely proud of that title. It's a much more substantial story than any of the others, but it contains so many moments that I had a great time writing. I can't wait to share it with you all :)


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